DRAINAGE BOARDS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 71, Issue 6137, 17 September 1945, Page 2

DRAINAGE BOARDS

PLACE IN NEW SYSTEM “The relationship of internal drainage boards to any catchment board which might be set up in the Thames Valley was outlined in a letter from the chairman of the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council, Mr W. L. Newnham, to the Thames Valley Drainage Board at its meeting. “I would advise that your board will be affected by the establishment of a Catchment Board in two ways,” stated Mr Newnham. , “(a) The catchment board is called upon to exercise general supervision ever the operations of all internal drainage boards.and thus any works which are to be undertaken by youik/board will require its prior i ment. The matter will be one of | mutual arrangement but I would say | in the case of a well-established draini age board the catchment board would J be very glad for it to continue to | undertake what is after all its greati est activity, maintenance, i without reference to the catchment I board. It would probably require that ' all purely developmental works be re--1 ferred to the catchment boards, the ' purpose being to ensure proper coi ordination throughout the district and I to prevent one internal local authority carrying out works on a stream to the detriment of another. “(b) The catchment board is required to make recommendations to my council in due course as to what should be done with any internal drainage board. It can recommend that any board continue in office or be abolished, or have its district altered or be amalgamated with another district. I cannot of course predict the recommendation of the catchment board, but I would say that any alteration to be made would have to be for the good of the district. “Your present work must continue even were the catchment board to take over. If it can be shown that such work can best be undertaken by your board under the general supervision of the catchment board, then your board should remain in existence with any necessarv alterations to its district. In certain cases it is thought that small boards may disappear and the work be carried out by catchment boards. In other cases internal boards may continue to function and even expand.”